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中国的气候和能源政策呈现出一种悖论:在以惊人的速度发展清洁能源的同时,也未停下新建燃煤电厂的步伐。

仅在2023年,中国就新建了70吉瓦(GW)的煤电装机容量,比2019年增长了四倍,占当年全球新增煤电装机容量的95%。

煤电产能的激增引发了人们对中国二氧化碳(CO2)排放和气候目标能否实现,以及对未来出现搁浅资产风险的担忧。

由于光伏和风能发电量不稳定,中国政府将煤炭作为保障能源安全和满足快速增长的用电高峰的手段。

与此同时,中国的电力行业在成本、需求模式、监管和市场运作方面正在发生重大变化。我们的新研究表明,用于证明新煤炭产能合理性的传统经济计算方式可能已经过时。

我们使用一个简单的分析指标来评估能满足用电高峰需求的最经济方式是什么。结果表明,光伏加电池储能的组合可能是比新建煤电更具成本效益的选择。

中国电力格局发生了怎样的变化?

在过去十年里,可再生能源和电池储能的成本大幅下降,高峰时段的住宅和商业用电需求激增,电力交易市场获得了更大的吸引力。

与此同时,中国还宣布了“双碳”目标,即在2030年前实现碳达峰、2060年前实现碳中和。鉴于这些转型,建设更多未减排的煤电厂与中国的长期气候承诺相冲突,而且对满足用电需求对增长来说,可能不再是最具成本效益的选择。它还占用了清洁能源系统转型急需的资金。

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替代指标如何评估成本?

我们的研究引入了一种替代指标,用于计算在满足不断增长的高峰用电需求的情况下,所需的最优成本投资。

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这一指标,即“净容量成本”(net capacity cost),是满足用电高峰需求所需的基础设施投资的年化固定成本,减去该设施带给电力市场的收入,或其“系统价值”(system value)。 在该指标中,负数意味着这些投资将带来利润,而非支出。

为了探索在中国使用的情境,我们使用了一个简单的例子:在一个假定省份,高峰用电需求增加了1500兆瓦(MW)、全年需求增加了6570吉瓦时(GWh)。

然后,我们概述了满足高峰和全年能源需求的五种策略(情况),其涵盖了从严重依赖煤电到光伏和电池储能相结合的方式。

在不同的案例中,资源衡量的规模基于它们能够可靠地满足高峰供应需求和年度能源需求的程度。

  • 情况1:新的煤炭发电能力可满足高峰和年度能源需求的所有增长。
  • 情况2:光伏可满足70%的年度能源需求增长,煤炭可满足30%的年度能源需求增长;光伏可满足525兆瓦的高峰供应需求(由于光伏发电可能不在高峰期间,因此基于“容量可信度”进行折减),而煤电可提供剩余的975兆瓦。
  • 情况3:光伏可满足所有年度能源需求增长;光伏和煤炭均可满足750兆瓦的高峰供应需求,同样通过容量可信度对光伏发电量进行折减。
  • 情况4:光伏满足所有年度能源需求增长;光伏和电池均为高峰供电需求提供750兆瓦;电池提供调频储备(用于管理精确至分钟的供需差异的备用电源)。
  • 情况5:光伏满足所有年度能源需求增长;广泛和电池均为高峰供电需求提供750兆瓦;电池提供能源套利(在价格或成本较低时充电,在价格或成本较高时放电)。

如下图所示,我们针对每种情况都计算了单个资源(煤、电池或光伏),以及整个系统每年获得1千瓦(kW)发电容量的年净成本,单位为人民币元。

表上半部分的资源净容量成本是指该资源的净成本(即年化固定成本减去该资源从提供能源和辅助服务,如调频,所获得的年收入)。正数表示电网运营商在增加或获取该资源时的净成本。

表下半部分的系统总净容量成本,是在每种情况下利用资源组合满足高峰需求增长的净成本。

我们用于计算系统净成本的权重是基于装机容量与高峰需求增长的比率。

不同能源组合满足用电需求的成本

情况 1 情况 2 情况 3 情况 4 情况 5
资源净容量成本 (元/千瓦/年, 每千瓦装机容量)
煤炭 424 424 512
电池 248 781
光伏 -128 -128 -128 -128
系统净容量成本 (元/千瓦/年, 每千瓦满足高峰用电需求且折减容量可信度后)
煤炭 471 306 236
电池 138 434
光伏 -223 -319 -319 -319
总计 471 83 -83 -181 115

为了对这一简单分析进行压力测试,我们研究了不同来源的各种价格的敏感性。

由于中国的光伏价格已经很低,我们的敏感性分析主要集中在煤炭、电池和其他分析所需投入的价格上。

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满足高峰用电需求最经济的方法是什么?

我们的结果表明,当电池储能提供调频储备时(情况4),光伏和储能的组合是满足高峰用电需求增长最具成本效益的选择。

在这种组合下,每获得1千瓦发电装机容量,电网运营商的成本为-181元(约-25美元或-20英镑)。

相比之下,新建煤电产能以满足高峰用电需求增长(情况1)是最昂贵的方案,每获得1千瓦装机容量的净容量成本为471元(约合65美元或52英镑)。

情况3,即大型煤电厂仅用作备用电源(几乎不发电),在中国可能出于政治原因而至少在短期内不可行。

另外两种情况(情况2和情况5)更具可比性,但鉴于自本分析报告发布以来,电池价格下降了30%以上,约为每瓦时(Wh)1元人民币(约合0.14美元或0.11英镑),因此情况5中的电池可能比情况2中的煤炭更具经济吸引力。

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我们的解决方案如何助力中国实现气候目标?

我们的分析表明,为了应对不断变化的形势,在满足中国日益增长的能源需求的同时,实现其气候目标的近期战略是将电池储能纳入电力市场。

目前,中国政府允许包括电池在内的“新型储能”参与电力市场。然而,详细规定尚不明确,电池的参与可以更简单。

例如,电池储能不被允许提供“运转储备”,即为应对意外的供需误差所预留的发电量。如果允许电池储能提供运转储备,将增强其商业价值。

允许电池储能更多地参与市场将促进电池储能系统的持续创新和降低成本,同时为系统运营商提供宝贵的运营经验。

这种策略将与市场效益相符,并反映美国和欧洲近期的电力市场经验。

这也将有助于解决近期的产能和能源需求,因为电池和光伏发电通常比燃煤电厂的建设速度更快。

此外,它还有助于缓解未来新增燃煤发电与可再生能源之间的冲突。主要作为可再生能源发电备用电源的新建燃煤电厂要么很少运营,要么侵占了其他现有煤炭发电厂的运营时间和净收入,从而产生新搁浅资产的风险。

通过继续进行电力市场改革,也将促进对可再生能源发电和电力储存进行更有效的投资。

允许市场制定批发市场电价、允许可再生能源发电和电力储存参与批发市场,这可以提高其收入和利润。

此外,改革还将鼓励高效利用储能,这是我们的关键发现。储能可以为电力系统提供多种功能;批发电价有助于引导储能运营以最低的成本实现具有最高价值的功能。

中国国家能源局最近发出指令,要求将新型储能设施(非抽水蓄能)纳入电网调度运行,这是向我们概述的改革迈出的一步。

可能需要进一步确定适当的补偿机制,例如在某些省份对此类储能设施提供的所有服务进行容量补偿,以促进这些储能设施的可持续发展和并网。

最后,仅靠增加供应不太可能成为满足中国电力需求增长的最低成本方式。提高终端使用效率和“需求响应”也有助于降低供电的总体成本。

随着中国电力市场改革的不断深入,连接多个省份的区域市场设计,以及鼓励省份间资源共享的区域资源充裕性规划,也有助于以最具成本效益和最低碳的方式满足中国不断增长的用电量和高峰需求。

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The post 嘉宾来稿:满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠” appeared first on Carbon Brief.

嘉宾来稿:满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”

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Climate Change

Close Major Deforestation Loopholes in the EPBC Act

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22 October 2025

The Hon Anthony Albanese MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Sent via email

To the Prime Minister, Federal Environment Minister, and Members of the Albanese Government,

As researchers who study, document and work to recover Australia’s plants and animals, insects and ecosystems, we are keenly aware of the value of nature to Australians and the world.

Australia has one of the worst rates of deforestation globally. For every 100 hectares of native woodland cleared, about 2000 birds, 15,000 reptiles and 500 native mammals will die. As scientists and experts, we have sounded the alarm for more than 30 years that the large-scale destruction of native woodlands, forests, wetlands and grasslands was the single biggest threat to the nation’s biodiversity. That is still the case today, and it is driving an extinction crisis.

New figures show that Queensland continues to lead the nation in deforestation. The latest statewide landcover and trees study (SLATS) report shows that annually 44% of all deforestation in Queensland occurs in the Great Barrier Reef catchment areas, where over 140,000 hectares are bulldozed each year.

Deforestation in Great Barrier Reef catchments is devastating one of Australia’s most iconic natural wonders. When forests and bushland are bulldozed, erosion causes debris to wash into waterways, sending sediment, nutrients and pesticides into the Reef waters. This smothers coral, fuels crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, and reduces water quality. These impacts compound the damage caused by repeated mass bleaching events driven by climate change.

The Great Barrier Reef sustains precious marine life, supports local and global biodiversity, and underpins tourism economies and coastal communities that rely on its survival. Continued mass deforestation threatens these values and could jeopardise the Reef’s World Heritage status. In 2026 the World Heritage Committee will review Australia’s progress in protecting the Reef and may consider placing it on the World Heritage in Danger list, if key threats to the Reef, including deforestation, are not addressed.

This mass deforestation happens due to a loophole in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, our national nature law. Exemptions allow deforestation to continue largely unregulated by the EPBC Act through a grandfathering clause from 2000 known as “continuous use”. Without meaningful reform, deforestation will continue to drive massive biodiversity loss. This loophole must be closed as part of the proposed EPBC Act reforms. The law is meant to safeguard our wildlife and our most precious places like the Great Barrier Reef. Please support closing major deforestation loopholes in the EPBC Act as an urgent and priority issue for the Federal Government.

Sincerely,

Professor James Watson, University of Queensland

Dr. Michelle Ward

Mandy Cheung

Mr Lachlan Cross

Timothy Ravasi

Gillian Rowan

Dr Graham R. Fulton, The University of Queensland

Dr Alison Peel

Dr James Richardson University of Queensland

Luke Emerson, University of Newcastle

Dr Hilary Pearl

Dr Tina Parkhurst

Dr Kerry Bridle

Dr Tracy Schultz, Senior Research Fellow, University of Queensland

Dr. Zachary Amir

Prof David M Watson, Gulbali Institute, CSU

Naomi Ploos van Amstel, PhD candidate

David Schoeman

Associate Professor Simone Blomberg, University of Queensland

Professor Euan Ritchie, Deakin University

Dr Ian Baird, Conservation Biologist

Paul Elton (ANU)

Melissa Billington

Hayden de Villiers

Professor Brett Murphy, Charles Darwin University

Professor Sarah Bekessy

Professor Anthony J. Richardson (University of Queensland)

Prof. Winnifred Louis, University of Queensland

Dr Yung En Chee, The University of Melbourne

Dr Jed Calvert, postdoctoral research fellow in wetland ecology, University of Queensland

A/Prof Daniel C Dunn, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland

Lincoln Kern, Ecologist

Professor Corey Bradshaw, Flinders University

Dr. Viviana Gonzalez, The University of Queensland

Prof. Helen Bostock

Dr Leslie Roberson

Bethany Kiss

Assoc. Prof Diana Fisher, UQ, and co-chair of the IUCN Marsupial and Monotreme Specialist Group

Dr Jacinta Humphrey, RMIT University

Professor Mathew Crowther

Christopher R. Dickman, Professor Emeritus, The University of Sydney

Fiona Hoegh-Guldberg, RMIT University

Dr Bertram Jenkins

Dr Daniela ParraFaundes

Dr Jessica Walsh

Dr. GABRIELLA scata – marine biologist, wildlife protector

Katherine Robertson

Professor Jane Williamson, Macquarie University

William F. Laurance, Distinguished Professor, James Cook University

A/Prof Deb Bower

Dr Leslie Roberson, University of Queensland

Ms Jasmine Hall, Senior Research Assistant in Coastal Wetland Biogeochemistry, Ecology and Management, Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University

Dr Kita Ashman, Adjunct Research Associate, Charles Sturt University

Genevieve Newey

Matt Hayward

Jessie Moyses

Natalya Maitz, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

Christina Ritchie

Liana van Woesik, PhD Student, University of Queensland

Benjamin Lucas, PhD Researcher

A/Prof. Carissa Klein, The University of Queensland

Conrad Pratt, PhD Student, University of Queensland

Dr Ascelin Gordon, RMIT University

Professor Nicole Graham, The University of Sydney

Professor Murray Lee, University of Sydney Law School

Dr Tracy Schultz, Snr Research Fellow, University of Queensland

Libby Newton (PhD candidate, Sydney Law School)

Hannah Thomas, University of Queensland

Professor Richard Kingsford, Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Sydney

Dr Anna Hopkins

Lena van Swinderen, PhD candidate at the University of Queensland

Professor Jodie Rummer, James Cook University

Dr Nita Lauren, Lecturer, RMIT University

Dr Christina Zdenek

Madeline Davey

Dr Rachel Killean, Sydney Law School

Dr. Sofía López-Cubillos

Dr Claire Larroux

Dr Alice Twomey, The University of Queensland

Zoe Gralton

Dr Robyn Gulliver

Ryan Borrett, Murdoch University

Adjunct Prof. Paul Lawrence, Griffith University, Brisbane Qld

Professor Susan Park, University of Sydney

Dr Holly Kirk, Curtin University

Deakin Distinguished Professor Marcel Klaassen

Dr Megan Evans, UNSW Canberra

Dr Amanda Irwin, The University of Sydney

Dr Keith Cardwell

Professor Don Driscoll, Deakin University

Susan Bengtson Nash

Distinguished Professor David Lindenmayer

Dr Madelyn Mangan, University of Queensland

Dr Isabella Smith

Geoff Lockwood

Dr Paula Peeters, Paperbark Writer

Prof Cynthia Riginos, University of Queensland

Dr. Sankar Subramanian

Associate Professor Zoe Richards

Dr Jessie Wells, The University of Melbourne

Professor Gretta Pecl AM, University of Tasmania

Dr April Reside, The University of Queensland

Oriana Licul-Milevoj (Ecologist)

Dr Yves-Marie Bozec, University of Queensland

Dr Julia Hazel

Dr Judit K. Szabo

Ana Ulloa

Dr Andreas Dietzel

Philip Spark – North West Ecological Services

Jonathan Freeman

Dr/ Mohamed Mohamed Rashad

Close Major Deforestation Loopholes in the EPBC Act

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Climate Change

The Ocean We’re Still Discovering

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The recent discovery of Grimpoteuthis feitiana, a new species of Dumbo octopus found deep in the Pacific, is a reminder of something both humbling and urgent: we still know so little about the ocean that shapes our lives. This fragile, finned creature, gliding silently more than a kilometer beneath the waves, has lived in these waters long before we mapped them, and its story is only now coming to light.

A still taken from the Greenpeace animation on the destructive mining of the deep sea. What if we could go back in time and stop a destructive industry before it even started?
A still taken from the Greenpeace animation on the destructive mining of the deep sea. What if we could go back in time and stop a destructive industry before it even started?

What moves me most about this discovery is not just the Dumbo octopus itself, but how it bridges science and culture. Its name draws inspiration from the flying apsaras of China’s Dunhuang murals, those graceful, winged figures that seem to dance through air and imagination. It reminds me that the deep sea has always held a place in our collective human story, — not only in myths and art, but in the ways we relate to nature, learn from it, and find meaning within it.

Pasifika connection to the ocean

For us in the Pacific, the ocean is more than a body of water. It is our identity, our culture, our history. Our ancestors read the seas to navigate, to survive, to connect communities scattered across islands. Discoveries like this Dumbo octopus awaken something deeper in me, — a sense that the ocean is alive with stories and wisdom we are only beginning to rediscover. And with that understanding comes a responsibility to protect it.

Confronting James Cook Vessel in the Pacific Ocean. © Martin Katz / Greenpeace
Greenpeace International activists peacefully confronted UK Royal Research Ship James Cook in the East Pacific waters as it returned from a seven-week long expedition to a section of the Pacific Ocean targeted for deep sea mining. © Martin Katz / Greenpeace

Each new species like the Dumbo octopus, each glimpse into the deep, is a warning as much as it is a wonder. The creatures of the abyss live slow, deliberate lives in fragile ecosystems, shaped by balance and patience. Deep-sea mining, pollution, and climate change threaten to erase them before we even learn their names. Protecting the Pacific’s oceans is not an abstract act of conservation; it is an act of cultural preservation, of love for our home, and for the unseen life that sustains us all.

Grimpoteuthis feitiana is more than a scientific discovery. It is a reminder that the ocean is still full of life, mystery, and wisdom — and that we have a duty to ensure these depths remain wild, healthy, and alive, for us and for the generations yet to come.

Reflection by Raeed Ali
Pacific Community Mobiliser

The Ocean We’re Still Discovering

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Climate Change

River of Life

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Swan River at Sunset. Image: Fernando de Sousa on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Nature is not only mother to us all, but our shared witness. Because truly, we are never alone when in the hallowed company of the elements, and life of the earth.

Sometimes, it is the immensity of things which reaches inside you—oceans, sky and sun, or the curve of the terrestrial distance—while at other moments it is the intensity of intimate association at a smaller scale, like a single tree you know as a friend, or a specific combination of scent, stone, water and light, felt uniquely in situ.

In both great and small manifestations, the natural world solemnly and playfully attends our lives as we go about our business on this, our singular living planet.

I felt this sense of nature incarnated as an attentive companion acutely this week, when walking between meetings along the Swan River.

If you grow up in Perth, even in one of the outer suburbs as I did, the Swan River, or Derbal Yerrigan in the language of the Whadjuk Noongar People, is always there as a presence.

The bits I know best feel like a kind of emotional map of the journey through the years, as evocative as any diary. This patch, where I threw a cricket ball around with my best mate in the early evening, laughing at the joy of being alive as the spinning pill arced against the twilight; that slight bend in the path, imprinted with the ambivalent tension of being about to sit university exams; there, the site years ago, of running around at the feet of my Dad, as young as I can remember him; here, a spot that summons the sense of exhausting exhilaration when fecklessly going for a run in the mid-day western heat; and above all that cherished place, I will always associate with love, newly declared and found to be returned.

And other things too, inchoate layers of pleating fragments; thoughts and feelings without number, that will always be evoked in my mind by the sweep of the Swan

What is most evocative or sacred to us is always bound to feeling, rather than the product of any rational calculus. It is also true, though, that geography as memory is complicated by change—something that is a constant in nature; wildly accelerated by human intervention; and now spiralling into the violently unpredictable, because of global heating.

Derbal Yerrigan has no doubt always been changing, in the countless days that the river has flowed since time immemorial; but never altered or transformed in the way has occured since colonisation and industrialisation; nor in the way that is happening now.

I troubled about this while making my way along the Swan this week, and watched as an Australasian darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae) perched on the river wall and spread its wings interstitially, as if gesturing to signify the bonds between the land, water and sky. At that moment, I abruptly remembered that my gaze was not solitary, because far and high in the air behind me were the lidless eyes of the city skyscrapers, including the dark towers of the fossil fuel giants, Woodside and Chevron, staring down with abject contempt for the future.

I suspect like many of us, I feel a perpetual mental struggle between the dissonance of the everyday, which, even despite spring temperatures soaring 15 degrees Celsius above average, still has a normalcy to it that is discordant with what we know about the realities of global warming, and the forecasts of what is to come. The Swan, like all rivers, now faces its most violent test yet of rising temperatures and extreme unnatural events.

The attendance of nature to our lives is not passive. If we think only of ‘the environment’ just as subject, we miss the point of both our own embeddedness in this world, and of the agency of life itself. Every species on earth has an innate energy to flourish and reproduce. The Swan River will keep on rolling, with all of the intense hydrological power at its command. Given half a chance nature will resurge and rebound in wood and feather, tooth and maw.

Our conscious task, I think to myself, but mentally addressing both the bird and the river, is to purposefully draw on the power of this meaning; an internal strength derived from the preciousness of our memories imbricated in place. 

I pause and offer a silent pledge to the River: you’ve always been there for us. And in the activism, ingenuity, campaigning and commitment of millions of determined people across Australia and the world, all of whom are dedicated to stopping the destruction of nature and the climate and of securing a return to flourishing, so we will be there for you.

Q & A

Greenpeace campaigns are always solution-led, and one of the questions I have been asked a lot over the years is about our systemic solution for Western Australia to reduce emissions at an emergency speed and scale, and get off gas.

This week, it was terrific to be in Perth, joining colleagues to help launch a comprehensive decarbonisation plan for the state, Power Shift: WA’s Electrified Future written in collaboration with Springmount Advisory.

This report comprehensively shows how WA’s economy can be aligned with the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and breaks down the transition pathway WA can take across energy, industry, transport and agriculture to achieve this. It highlights the challenges and opportunities across each sector, and provides policy level solutions to achieve these ambitions using only already-existing technologies. You can check out the report here.

River of Life

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